EAST COAST—FURTHER DEALINGS WITH ESKIMO ,409were the first eider-duck we met with on the coast.The same day, later in the evening, another big flockcame flying north. I heard Sverdrup from the otherboat tell me to look out, and I also heard the whirrof their wings, but there was not light enough for ashot, as I could only get a glimpse of them againstthe dark background of the sliore. Meanwhile, we pushed on steadily northwards,and the. misgivings of the Lapps became more visibleevery day, and were more Openly expressed. Balto,the spokesman, had several times confided to methat they had felt more comfortable since they cameacross the Eskimo and had seen that they were decent¦folk and not cannibals, as he had been told at homein Finmarken, and that it would be possible to passa winter with them in case of need. But now thatwe had seen the last of the natives, as they supposed,and were still going northwards, the two had begunto get very uneasy, and to complain of the hard workand short commons, and because we had had to comeso far north, and yet had found no place from which. to get up on to the ice, for there could be no question. of such a thing on a coast Hke this, and they weresure it could never be any better. I always consoledBalto by telling him that farther on by Umivik, or alittle way beyond that, the coast was much better, asindeed he must have seen himself as we drifted by in